62 SPORT AT ALTOONA. 



tion of ladies' hats. The introduction of these beautiful 

 little birds may well come under the notice of the Accli- 

 matisaton Society. It was not in my power to preserve 

 many of the skins of birds other than the blue robin, the 

 woodpecker, and some others, inasmuch as at that period 

 of the year the moult was not sufficiently set, and I had 

 to throw some of my skins away and replace them with 

 some of the same sort, in better preservation, that I pro 

 cured on my way home from those excellent naturalists, 

 Mr James Booth, of Niagara Falls, Canada West, and 

 Mr William Gralbraith, of the Broadway, New York. 



Having left the town of Altoona some way behind me, 

 I gladly climbed over some rails into a stubble-field, that 

 had been Indian corn, shook the dust from my heels, 

 rustled among the beautiful lying for game, or thick 

 wild growth of weeds, which the American farmers seem 

 to take very little pains to be rid of, gave the office to 

 Chance, and prepared myself for a shot. Field after 

 field, stubble, wild, weedy, grassy ground, and good 

 crops of standing clover, were all ranged by Chance 

 in vain, when, seeing that the expectation of any game 

 was a farce, I amused myself by watching the dilemma 

 of the cautious old dog when he came on the golden- 

 breasted meadow lark of America, the size of one of our 

 thrushes, and could not determine by his nose whether 

 he ought to point it or not. He evidently thought he 

 was in a strange land of strange game, for he made 

 doubtful pauses on all sorts of birds which were strange 

 to him, and then looked back at me to ask my opinion ; 

 but he very soon found out that they were not worth 

 his notice, and he ranged among them with his accus 

 tomed freedom. In the clover-fields I was much struck 

 with the large size and beauty of some of the butterflies, 



